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The First Paterosari Christian Church
The First Paterosari Christian Church (otherwise known as Gereja Kristen Paterosari Pertama or GKPP) is the first and only non-denominational Protestant Christian church in Paterosari, Kuningan, West Java. It was founded in 1873 by Kobus de Haven I, a member of the De Haven Family that founded the village. History 1800s Kobus de Haven was a missionary and teacher through the Doopsgezinde Zendungs-Vereeniging or Dutch Mennonite Missionary Society (DMMS) in Amsterdam. His father Quintijn de Haven, belonged to the Mennonite church in the Netherlands and was a government official and tradesman while his mother Sara de Haven was a Catholic Italian noblewoman of the Sardinia royal family, and both lived in France, where Kobus and his brothers were born. His parents later moved to the Dutch East Indies in 1846 and Quintijn died in 1858 leaving a few acres of land in West Java for his family (a grant from the Dutch government). In 1869, the family moved and developed a village with budding agriculture, which attracted a few Europeans seeking to escape the hustle and bustle of the cities. Kobus moved to Paterosari in 1870 and managed to convert the people there to become Mennonites in joining the community (his mother, however, remained Catholic to the day she died) and constructed a church in 1873, originally named De Eerste Christelijke Kerk van Paterosari. At this time, Christianity was little known to the natives of West Java, so most of the members of the church were the colonials. 1900s By 1910, the church became officially affiliated with The Propitius Deaconess Congregation, a congregation of medical deaconesses started by Kobus de Haven's daughter, Madea de Haven, who was ordained as the church's first deaconess in 1905. With the help of The Paterosari League of Women, the Propitius Clinic was built to serve the medical needs of Paterosari. The church eventually branched out from its Mennonite origins into the philosophies taught by Kobus de Haven II, Kobus' nephew (who had started his tenure in 1900) and became a non-denominational church in 1925. In 1940, under James Horvath, the Dara Dara Paterosari was created to facilitate local congregants to participate in the church's events. Architecture The church was initially a smaller church, much improved and revamped by Kobus de Haven II in the 1910s to the end of his tenure as reverend. The church was built on a stone foundation and is three stories high (with an additional one-and-a-half stories for the clock tower). The first floor contains the hallway, the church hall, the kitchen, the secretariat, the conference room, and the backrooms that lead to the conservatory outback. The second floor contains the landing, the sitting room, the reverend's office, and the reverend's resting room. The third floor is reserved for the church's caretakers (currently, the Sudradjat family) and contains the landing, the living room, the kitchen, two bedrooms, the bathroom, and the storage room that leads to the clock tower. Next to the church building is the Sunday school building, which has two classrooms and a bathroom. There is a chicken coop outback as well as a dovecote, and a spacious parking lot out-front. Organization Reverends * Kobus de Haven I (1873-1900) * Kobus de Haven II (1900-1940) * James Horvath (1940-1979) * Dorothy Horvath (1979-present) Congregation Assembly * General Head: * General Secretary: * General Treasurer: Category:Plac Category:Institutions Category:Groups Category:Places